Now in its second year and honouring the pioneer of soil mechanics in Brazil who died in May 2011, the Milton Vargas Award is an initiative of the Brazilian magazine Fundações and Obras Geotécnicas. It recognises the work of professionals responsible for planning, design and implementation of large construction projects, whose works have already featured prominently in the magazine.
Technical director Dr. Dimiter Alexiew (Huesker Germany); represented at the Award night by the firm’s German export manager, Peter Terhechte; engineering manager Cristina Schmidt (Huesker Brazil); and business manager and engineer at ThyssenKrupp Brazil, Jan Selders together won the Foundations category of the Award for their technical paper ‘Foundation of a stockyard with geotextile encased columns and horizontal reinforcements on soft soil areas’.
In the Geosynthetics category, the winning article was ‘Geogrid Reinforced Slope with Green Facing’. The article was written by Paulo Brugger (engineer at Brugger Engineering), Fernando Andrade (engineer at Agrogeo Engineering), both partners of Huesker, and Cristina Schmidt, who was again recognised for her good engineering work.
The Award category winners were announced at a special ceremony in São Paulo in the presence of hundreds of professional engineers representing Brazilian geotechnical consultants and companies.
In order to compete for the award, works must have been published in the current year or the previous year to the date of the award. The articles and awards are selected by a committee made up of representatives from the Brazilian Association of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ABMS), the Brazilian Association of Foundations Engineering and Geotechnics (ABEF), the Brazilian Association of Geosynthetics (IGS Brazil), the Brazilian Association of Engineering Geology and Environment (ABGE), the Brazilian Association of Consulting Projects and Geotechnical Engineering (ABEG), also including the Brazilian Tunnelling Committee (CBT) and the Brazilian Committee on Dams (CBDB).
The selection is based on the importance of the general technical contribution, on its relevance and on the level of the technical publication as well.
